Swimming-breathing

The best advice for me was something I read that said to remember to keep one ear in the water when breathing.

The best advice I got was to do one arm drills, breathing on my bad (left) side every other stroke. That really helped to balance out my technique - that is to have good form on both sides and not have a favorite breathing side.

I've been told that being able to breath on either side is beneficial for stroke balance. Additionally, I find it beneficial for open water swimming in case the sun is glaring in your eyes (as it was in Pleasant Prairie this year) or if waves are blasting from one side (as it was in the Spirit of Racine this year).

Although I favor one side and tend to do medium to hard intervals while breathing on one side, I always like to do at least one or two drills that incorporate bilateral breathing.

I started out not being able to breathe on the left at all. After a few sessions, it was second nature and I now find myself breathing bilaterally almost all the time. On what I consider an intermediate pace, I breathe every third stroke. At that pace, I don't feel like I'm rushing my breathing nor like I'm stretching it too long. Only when I'm swimming very slowly or very quickly will I go to every 4th or second stroke respectively.

Keep up the bilateral breathing!

Avoid shoulder problems, keep your stroke balanced, and you will be glad you practiced it!

I used to breathe only on my dominant side ( right side ). About July I decided screw it, I'm going to breath on my left side too. I swallowed some water and felt awkward for about 2 weeks ( swim 3x/ wk ) but then it seemed to click. Since then, I breath bilaterally on all my swims, alternating sides each breath.

I think it's helped a tremendous amount in terms of having a balanced stroke, which has contributed in large part to my swim ability improvements over the last 5 months.

In my open water swims, I've had to sometimes breath more frequently on one side or the other depending on waves/sun as has been pointed out already.

So, definitely, I agree 100%, that learning to bi-lateral breath is an excellent skill to focus on, and will contribute to your overall ease and comfort in the water, which equates to more efficient swimming in both the short and long term.

-Chris

All right , all right, I've been putting this one off since my swimming is fine..... These will be my drills for the next few weeks

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr